DMN Giddy About DFW Real Estate 10 days After DMN Says DFW Real Estate is in the Tank

DMN and Steve Brown officially win the flip flop award and continue to show symptoms of a severe case of bipolar disorder with this article from last Friday. I'm just happy they consulted a resource that knows what they are talking about.

"Dallas-Fort Worth's housing market is the least likely of any in the country to see a decrease in home values, a new report confirms...Dallas and Fort Worth ranked dead last in PMI Group's latest forecast of cities with the biggest chance for a home price shakeout."

Those of you who read my blog know this isn't shocking news to me. The article goes on to say,

"Analysts with the California-based company estimate that Dallas-Fort Worth has less than a 1 percent chance of marked home price drops in the next two years."

Remember my post from last June? I sent out an email telling my clients and friends not to pay attention to the national statistics and the Dallas Morning News scare headlines. And finally this last excerpt from the article,

"It's quite likely Texas will be doing better than the national average for the foreseeable future."

Real estate in Texas appreciates at a slow and steady rate each year so we typically don't see unstable ups and downs. But I'm afraid the damage has already been done on consumer psychology. Recently on Dallas Dirt someone posted this saying 2008 will be a "reality check" for real estate in Dallas. But I can't blame them for thinking so negatively considering 10 days ago Steve Brown published this crap. And by the way, Steve's headline of sales being down 25% turned out to actually be 8%. That's quite a difference but once you put it out there for the public to see the damage has already been done, hasn't it?

Wick Allison Puts Steve Brown on Front Street...

...and on Frontburner. For those not hip enough or cool enough to know what (or where?) "front street" is (or didn't grow up in South Dallas like I did), go here and get your read on and come back. LOVE. IT.

And at the risk of sounding like an immature child. Nyah - nyah - nyah - nyah - nyah - nyah. (Sticking tongue out)

Price Reductions: Naughty or Nice?

Good article in DMN today. My good friend and fellow Realtor, Lydia Player, gets it right in the article with this quote, "You don't need to wait around for six months to decide if your price is right," said Dallas agent Lydia Player. "If we don't get an offer in the first few weeks, we need a price reduction."

People that stick with the same price for 6 months are asking for trouble and an even lower sales price. Do you really think a buyer that knows your home has been on the market for over 200 days is willing to pay you what you're asking? Think about that. So if your house has been on the market for 3 weeks and 15 agents have shown the property but no offers, guess what? The market is telling you your house is overpriced. Yes, we know you added a pool and a Viking range and faux finished the dining room but again, the market is telling you your home is not priced correctly for the current market. And 3 things affect value. Price, Condition and Location. If your home is in a good location and in good condition then that leaves...the price.

And don't blame your agent for asking to reduce the price. They are doing their job by communicating what the market is saying about your home. That is the sign of a good agent to have the cojones to call you up and say, "We missed the mark on price and now we need to make an adjustment." I could end this by using Dr. Phil's "It's time to get real" mantra. So I won't. But you should!

What I Learned in Class: Part I

The purpose of the class I attended last week was to help agents price their client's listings according to the market they are in using classic economic supply and demand logic. When inventory trends downward, consumers push prices up. Which means the opposite is true or when inventory trends up, consumers push prices down. Eric Celeste over at Frontburner blogged this earlier today by way of the DMN and Steve Brown which is a prime example of real estate "experts" not giving the full picture. Here are a couple graphs taken from Trendgraphix using NTREIS statistics from all North Texas areas to form charts and graphs so people like me can look at pretty pictures and learn at the same time.






So what market are we in here in North Texas? According to these graphs the number of home sales is down from the previous year (6,583 in 11/06 to 5,157 in 11/07) but sales prices are up from $184K in November '06 to $204K in November '07. That is approximately a 10% rate of appreciation. Not too bad. But how can inventory be up AND prices rise? Hmmmm. So what does this mean and where are we headed? How do we interpret the fact that less homes are selling than the previous year, inventory is rising slightly yet home values are increasing?

No, we're not defying the laws of economics. I believe we are at a tipping point of sorts. The laws of economics do apply to our market but we don't fluctuate as much as other states including the outlandish California and Flordia real estate markets. With that said, inventory will continue to increase and prices may drop in certain areas due to overbuilding, short sales, foreclosures in the subprime market, etc. But I believe we will simply see a flattening market meaning prices won't go up, but they won't go down either. Inventory will not reach astronomical levels like the 29 months worth of inventory in some California cities.

In closing, these numbers are for ALL OF NORTH TEXAS AND NOT YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD! Many areas in North Texas will see price appreciation and will always see price appreciation no matter what regional statistics say. So talk with a local Realtor who knows your neighborhood before you start spreading doom and gloom to your friends.

Listen to Frontburner. They're Smart.

The DMN's Steve Brown strikes yet again perpetuating national real estate doom and gloom. "U.S. home sales will hit 5-year low in 2007", ugh. That may be true but how does that apply to Dallas/Ft. Worth? Oh, that's right, it doesn't. Brown even writes "[Housing analyst, John Tucillo,] agreed that market conditions vary dramatically by city.” Brown obviously disagrees with this assessment. I mean, is he trying to give Jim Schutze over at the Observer a run for his money by being such a muckraker? Publisher and editor of D Magazine, Wick Allison, takes Brown and the DMN editors to task on Frontburner for his incessant prattlings about how the real estate boat is sinking faster than the Titanic. (A big thanks to Frontburner and Wick for linking to my blog post about how Dallas/ Ft. Worth real estate is on track to have the 2nd best year in real estate sales ever.) And then I stumble upon this article by Brown that reluctantly tries to take a positive spin on our local market using many of the same statements and stats from the doom and gloom article referenced earlier. I think I can actually feel him squirming as he lifts his pen to write something positive about our local real estate market. He references how Realtors have largely blamed the media for our real estate woes but quickly gets his revenge by ending the article with a nice jab by making sure Realtors take part of the blame as well. I don't know Steve Brown personally but I'm not sure where all this negativity is stemming from? I mean seriously, did you have a bad real estate experience back in the day? What I do know about Steve Brown is that when you drive by his East Dallas home it looks like his yard hasn't been trimmed in ages and is literally trying to eat his house. Honestly. The fence is leaning, the trees haven't been trimmed since 'Nam and forget about actually using the detached garage as, well, a garage. I'm not saying this to be (completely) vindictive but our Dallas/Ft. Worth real estate columnist is responsible for swaying our city's opinions and has a honest-to-goodness “tear down” that looks as though it is uninhabitable and certainly not up to city code by a long shot. The irony of this is not lost on me. So my challenge to Mr. Brown would be to either 1. Start talking about LOCAL real estate issues and numbers or at least put our market into perspective with California and Vegas; or 2. Clean up your yard and maintain your house. Because why should we listen to what you say about real estate when you can’t even take care of your own.

Subprime Woes Not Felt in Dallas Like Rest of Country

Could this actually be a positive report about real estate in the Dallas area? Why yes it is. Although everyone is still scared of what the future holds it's still nice to show that we are insulated from the doom and gloom of the Florida and California real estate markets. Dallas was 1 of 5 real estate markets in the country in the second quarter to see a gain in sales prices. I like these two takeaway quotes from the story.

"In a lot of places in Dallas, home prices are still going up by double
digits. "In other neighborhoods, they are actually falling. But across the board, the gainers outweigh the losers,"

And,

"The mortgage shakeout is affecting other parts of the country a lot more than it is Texas. We didn't have anywhere near the level or magnitude of subprime loans that other markets did. But that doesn't mean that Dallas-Fort Worth homeowners aren't going to be hammered with a steady diet of bad news about the U.S. housing market. Those negative reports weigh on consumer psychology."

But then this isn't news to me.